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A Look At Chipmakers In The Wake Of The Ethereum Merge. Is There Still Demand For Graphics Cards?

A Look At Chipmakers In The Wake Of The Ethereum Merge. Is There Still Demand For Graphics Cards?
ZINGER KEY POINTS
  • Ethereum blockchain has switched to a Proof-of-stake consensus model
  • The complete stoppage of mining Ethereum tokens will have a perceptible but temporary impact on leading chipmakers.

Considered the world’s most actively used blockchain network, Ethereum has successfully transitioned from a mining and energy-intensive proof-of-work (PoW) consensus mechanism to a proof-of-stake (PoS) model that replaces miners with validators.

Dubbed as The Merge, this move has been touted to help improve Ethereum’s scalability, reduce its energy requirements and make its entire ecosystem more secure.

However, the elimination of the need to mine Ethereum will undoubtedly impact the overall global graphic processing unit (GPU) demand, casting doubt over the future growth potential of chipmakers like NVIDIA Corporation, Advanced Micro Devices Inc. and others.

Delving into Nvidia’s quarterly results to understand the revenue share of GPUs in its overall business does paint a less extreme picture than what is being surmised.

ETH upgrade to impact NVIDIA revenue: Lian

Offering a viewpoint on how Ethereum’s transition will impact NVIDIA and other chipmakers, thought leader and best-selling author Anndy Lian says, “The Merge will completely remove the need for miners, who are currently securing the Ethereum network. They will replace them with validators. This upgrade would lead to a big revenue miss for NVIDIA, whose stock was down by nearly 20% compared to the previous quarter, associated to a slowdown in the gaming business and weakness in the global markets.”

“If this is executed properly with the support of companies like NVIDIA, this market push is likely to put these listed chipmakers in a much better position,” Lian adds.

The world leader in the discrete graphics card business, NVIDIA’s graphics business contributes to 58% of the company’s revenues and 62% of its operating income, according to Investopedia.

This includes the GeForce GPUs, GeForce NOW game-streaming service and solutions for gaming platforms provided by NVIDIA.

GPU market to post healthy growth

Despite the fact that sales for the GeForce GPU will be affected by the drop in GPU demand on account of Ethereum’s design change, analysts expect the overall GPU market to post healthy growth rates over the next five years due to strong demand from the gaming industry.

What is worrisome, however, will be the loss of pricing power that companies like NVIDIA enjoyed as long as the semiconductor chip shortage lasted.

With demand pressures and pricing challenges increasing, chipmakers like NVIDIA will need to aggressively focus on other verticals to maintain profit margins.

Echoing this sentiment, Raj Kapoor, Founder and CEO of India Blockchain Alliance says that Ethereum is not the only coin that mines decently on a graphics card and that Beam and Ravencoin are actually similarly profitable at this time, and even when ETH mining stops, those would still continue.

According to experts, post The Merge, crypto miners will be looking elsewhere for mining opportunities as long as there are other coins that will reward them for their effort.

“It is also possible that combined with the great crypto value crash of 2022, some miners decide to get out of the business altogether. Some may even try and make their own forked version of Ethereum, one that requires mining and no rules. We would probably see increased availability of second-hand GPUs that have been mined to bits as a result of the second-largest crypto moving away from mining,” Kapoor says.

He adds that with ETH’s move to PoS being in the cards for a long time, most miners will have planned ahead with alternative money-making endeavors.

Once the flooding of GPUs in the used market stops, GPU demand would revert back to previous levels, unless there is some other factor that reduces the overall demand.

With the increased usage of computers for entertainment and work purposes being a trend that will stay, eventually, all forces will balance out again.

As for companies like NVIDIA that are involved in the manufacturing and distribution of GPUs, they’re already bundling them with other products and exploring other business verticals to supplement their profits, he further says.

While the short-term effect of Ethereum’s shift to a PoS model will dent sales for NVIDIA and other chipmakers, the overall growth story for GPUs and allied services seems intact.

Moreover, as these companies expand their range of products and services into areas such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), their reliance on the crypto world will eventually fade away and will be replaced by Web3-focused consumer products in the near future.

 

Source: https://www.benzinga.com/markets/cryptocurrency/22/09/28897739/comprehending-the-impact-of-eth-merge-on-nvidia-and-other-chipmakers

Anndy Lian is an early blockchain adopter and experienced serial entrepreneur who is known for his work in the government sector. He is a best selling book author- “NFT: From Zero to Hero” and “Blockchain Revolution 2030”.

Currently, he is appointed as the Chief Digital Advisor at Mongolia Productivity Organization, championing national digitization. Prior to his current appointments, he was the Chairman of BigONE Exchange, a global top 30 ranked crypto spot exchange and was also the Advisory Board Member for Hyundai DAC, the blockchain arm of South Korea’s largest car manufacturer Hyundai Motor Group. Lian played a pivotal role as the Blockchain Advisor for Asian Productivity Organisation (APO), an intergovernmental organization committed to improving productivity in the Asia-Pacific region.

An avid supporter of incubating start-ups, Anndy has also been a private investor for the past eight years. With a growth investment mindset, Anndy strategically demonstrates this in the companies he chooses to be involved with. He believes that what he is doing through blockchain technology currently will revolutionise and redefine traditional businesses. He also believes that the blockchain industry has to be “redecentralised”.

www.anndy.com
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What Are The Key Events In September To Look Out For? CPI, The Merge, FOMC & Vasil

What Are The Key Events In September To Look Out For? CPI, The Merge, FOMC & Vasil

September 2022 is going to be exciting. Although historically, this is a bad month for the stock markets. But it is not so for the crypto markets. In my humble opinion, there are a couple of key events that investors should be looking at very closely as they are all interlinked.

Consumer Price Index (CPI)

We are starting with September 13. The U.S. Bureau of Labour Statistics will share the Consumer Price Index (CPI) report.

One of those data points is the August Jobs figures that are already out. A close look at the U.S. labor market data showed that non-farm payrolls rose by 315,000 in August, higher than the estimated 298,000 but lower than the previous month’s 526,000. A strong employment sector means a more resilient economic condition, thus propelling Fed to tackle inflation more aggressively. Analysts also dig into the jobs report for signs of what is happening with wage growth.

The U.S. CPI figures will ultimately assist the Fed in deciding whether to go for a 50bps or 75bps rate hike, together with the jobs data for August that was provided earlier this month. The U.S. inflation rate increased from 8.6% in May 2022 to 8.5% in July and 9.1% in June. The U.S. inflation rate for August may serve as a benchmark for future Fed rate hikes.

Ethereum Merge  

This is a much-anticipated event in the crypto scene for this year. This event has already begun. They have shipped the Bellatrix upgrade, the final update before the Merge itself that is scheduled to happen from September 13-15.

This upgrade will reduce Ethereum’s carbon footprint as crypto mining will be removed, moving the network’s consensus mechanism from Proof of Work (PoW) to Proof of Stake (PoS). This move has also affected Nvidia’s stock price, as they have been a key supplier of mining equipment. The miners are still hopeful, and they think that the fork will continue to keep them in the business. On top of these, there was a lot of news and marketing buzz around the new Eth PoW airdrop. Key opinion leaders are telling all that borrowing as many ETH from AAVE or Compound would make sense before the snapshot as they can expect maximum utilization.

The bullish signs are showing on the charts, with the price of Ethereum going up to 4.98% while Bitcoin remains stagnant.

Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC)

The FOMC holds eight regularly scheduled meetings during the year and other discussions as needed. September 21 is the next meeting.

The Fed Chairman Powell’s “powerful” speech at Jackson Hole on August 26 is primarily to blame for the recent sharp decline in market prices. Powell’s comments were substantially more hawkish than anticipated and alarmed the market.

The market anticipated the Fed to remain neutral after recent inflation statistics revealed that inflation had peaked and prices were dropping. They expected the Fed to keep to its plans to increase interest rates by another 100-120 basis points (1% -1.2%) by the end of 2022, bringing the Fed funds rate to 3.25%-3.5%. At the last FOMC meeting, Powell had also given the market the assurance that the economy would have a soft landing and that no recession was imminent.

Powell used words like “bring some pain to households and businesses” and “very likely be some softening of labor conditions”. Analysts who looked at the speech were reading that the Fed Chair was suggesting the recent fall in inflation was not good enough. To stop inflation once and for all, the Fed was prepared to increase the unemployment rate, reduce wage growth, and sacrifice short-term growth.

For many Americans, the critical question is whether they can continue to keep their jobs, not the increase in rates of September as the Fed bears down on inflation.

The FOMC has raised interest rates four times in 2022 so far. If you are wondering what has the rate got to do with cryptocurrencies. For your information, Bitcoin’s price dipped as low as $17,500 following the Fed’s two-day meeting on June 14 and 15. The Fed raised interest rates by 0.75%. Generally, traders leave the market when interest rates increase, or other markets are impacted, which leads to a sell-off in cryptocurrencies.

Cardano Vasil Hard Fork

The Cardano Vasil hard fork is currently the second most anticipated upgrade in the crypto space, right behind the Ethereum Merge.

Many of us may not know the term “Vasil”. Cardano, ranked 8th on CoinMarketcap is a proof-of-stake blockchain platform: the first to be founded on peer-reviewed research and developed through evidence-based methods.

Vasil is a major upgrade on Cardano, bringing increased network capacity and lower-cost transactions. The upgrade will also bring improvement to Plutus, Cardano’s smart contract platform, to enable developers to create more efficient blockchain-based applications.

Cardano’s ADA token price rose 2.2% in the past 24 hours and 14% in the last week. This upgrade is confirmed to be on September 22.

Impact on the Financial Market

Because Bitcoin is seen as an investment instrument similar to stocks and bonds, the FOMC and macroeconomic pronouncements can greatly impact its price. Numerous studies show that these announcements also impact the financial market as a whole.

It remains to be seen if history will repeat itself and equities will conclude the month of September lower. As additional evidence comes in over the coming months, the idea of a Fed Pivot that was dismissed after Jackson Hole could start to materialize. Investors in the stock market anticipate that the Fed’s decision will provide them with guidance before the results of the upcoming quarter are released and when macroeconomic conditions change in 2023. Perhaps Ethereum and Cardano are the only shining knights in this financial uncertainty.

We will see.

I will end with a quote. “You will most likely come out on top in this bear market if you stick to your financial strategies and maintain your sense. Keep in mind that the people who sow their seeds today can become the millionaires who will profit from the upcoming bull market.”- Anndy Lian

 

Source: https://www.benzinga.com/22/09/28851850/what-are-the-key-events-in-september-to-look-out-for-cpi-the-merge-fomc-vasil

Anndy Lian is an early blockchain adopter and experienced serial entrepreneur who is known for his work in the government sector. He is a best selling book author- “NFT: From Zero to Hero” and “Blockchain Revolution 2030”.

Currently, he is appointed as the Chief Digital Advisor at Mongolia Productivity Organization, championing national digitization. Prior to his current appointments, he was the Chairman of BigONE Exchange, a global top 30 ranked crypto spot exchange and was also the Advisory Board Member for Hyundai DAC, the blockchain arm of South Korea’s largest car manufacturer Hyundai Motor Group. Lian played a pivotal role as the Blockchain Advisor for Asian Productivity Organisation (APO), an intergovernmental organization committed to improving productivity in the Asia-Pacific region.

An avid supporter of incubating start-ups, Anndy has also been a private investor for the past eight years. With a growth investment mindset, Anndy strategically demonstrates this in the companies he chooses to be involved with. He believes that what he is doing through blockchain technology currently will revolutionise and redefine traditional businesses. He also believes that the blockchain industry has to be “redecentralised”.

www.anndy.com
j j j

How Significant Is Instagram’s NFT Launch? What are the things you should look out for?

How Significant Is Instagram’s NFT Launch? What are the things you should look out for?

Earlier this month the head of Instagram, Adam Mosseri, announced that he will start beta testing NFT functions with a small group of users in the US.  Mosseri also confirmed there will be no fees for posting or sharing NFTs on Instagram.  Any NFT digital collectibles shared in Instagram will appear as tagged photos or profiles, and when clicked, you will be able to view creator and artwork details.  Instagram supports the display of NFTs created on the Ethereum and Polygon as well as on Flow and Solana in the future.  It will also support the use of third-party encrypted wallets such as Rainbow, MetaMask and Trust Wallet, with support for more crypto wallets planned in the future.

 

Source: see Tweet from May 9, 2002

Creators and developers participating in the beta can now share the NFTs they make or buy.  Users can share these NFTs in their feeds, stories, or messages.  According to Mosseri, only a few people currently have access to Instagram’s NFT beta test, which is designed to be able to gain important data feedback from the initial test and learn how to best integrate the buying and selling of these digital collectibles. While more NFT-related features will be rolled out in the future I believe that Instagram’s NFT rollout may be part of Instagram’s parent company Meta’s metaverse project, involving a deeper interaction in the future. As Mosseri tweeted a few days after the NFT announcement: “Power is shifting. Over the next 10 years, we are going to see a shift in power away from platforms and towards creators. There’s a lot we all can and should do to lean into that shift.”

 

What is the purpose of Instagram’s move?

I believe that the creator economy is very important for Instagram in the current market. While many creators in social media already have a variety of different ways to make money, many of them are unpredictable and dependent on the platform they use.  Therefore, there is a strong case to believe that Instagram will be able to attract creators to form a community. “I want to acknowledge upfront that NFTs and blockchain technologies are all about distributing trust and distributing power,” Mosseri admitted. “But Instagram is fundamentally a centralized platform, so there’s a tension there. One of the reasons why we’re starting small is we want to make sure that we can learn from the community. We want to make sure that we work out how to embrace those tenets of distributed trust and distributed power, despite the fact that we are, yes, a centralized platform.”

In the metaverse, people will buy, use NFTs for a variety of purposes, and share their experiences. Meta decided to start with NFTs because NFTs are an important link in the metaverse economy. I believe that since Facebook changed its name to Meta, they have been exploring a wider range of web3 technologies, and aim that through using these technologies, creation costs will be reduced, and the experience would be better. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg confirmed that similar functionality will soon be available on Facebook and possibly other Meta apps in the future.  Zuckerberg added that Meta will work on augmented reality NFTs, or 3D NFTs.

In my view, Instagram’s foray into NFTs has been planned for quite a while. In 2021, Instagram hosted Creators Week, an invite-only virtual summit that Instagram describes in its invitations as a “private event for NFT creators.”  It’s also worth noting that Instagram’s NFT beta program launched not long after Twitter enabled NFT profile pictures for its premium users.  That said, Instagram and Twitter are not the only big tech companies entering the NFT space. Susan Wojcicki, CEO of YouTube, said it may start using web3 technologies including NFTs in the near future to help YouTube creators monetize their work: “We’re always focused on expanding the YouTube ecosystem to help creators capitalize on emerging technologies, including things like NFTs, while continuing to strengthen and enhance the experiences creators and fans have on YouTube,” she confirmed in a letter published in January.

In the light of the developments, industry experts are all optimistic of Instagram’s moves on NFT. “I think Instagram can help users to understand NFT better. They are also indirectly introducing new users to the cryptocurrency space. Overall, this is a positive move and I hope more companies can do the same.” Jenny Zheng, Business Development lead at Bybit NFT Marketplace commented.

Anndy Lian, thought leader and Chairman at BigONE exchange said: “While Instagram isn’t the first social app to experiment with NFTs, the sheer size of its one billion (monthly active) user base gives it its biggest reach versus its competitors, which means that the addition of web3 technology it could potentially engage a whole new group of users.  And with Meta’s Facebook expected to add similar features in the near future, Meta will have a huge NFT presence in the social media space. I know Instagram can create more sparks in the NFT space. I am so looking forward.”

It is also worth noting that as the value of NFTs has fallen significantly since last year, so the number of users interested in the feature may be lower than expected.  As a striking example of this slowdown, on May 4, the Coinbase NFT marketplace opened, but since then only just over four thousand people have bought an NFT. So it remains to be seen whether Instagram and Facebook can turn things around and rekindle significant user enthusiasm for NFTs.

 

Original Source: https://www.benzinga.com/22/06/27870761/how-significant-is-instagrams-nft-launch-what-are-the-things-you-should-look-out-for

Anndy Lian is an early blockchain adopter and experienced serial entrepreneur who is known for his work in the government sector. He is a best selling book author- “NFT: From Zero to Hero” and “Blockchain Revolution 2030”.

Currently, he is appointed as the Chief Digital Advisor at Mongolia Productivity Organization, championing national digitization. Prior to his current appointments, he was the Chairman of BigONE Exchange, a global top 30 ranked crypto spot exchange and was also the Advisory Board Member for Hyundai DAC, the blockchain arm of South Korea’s largest car manufacturer Hyundai Motor Group. Lian played a pivotal role as the Blockchain Advisor for Asian Productivity Organisation (APO), an intergovernmental organization committed to improving productivity in the Asia-Pacific region.

An avid supporter of incubating start-ups, Anndy has also been a private investor for the past eight years. With a growth investment mindset, Anndy strategically demonstrates this in the companies he chooses to be involved with. He believes that what he is doing through blockchain technology currently will revolutionise and redefine traditional businesses. He also believes that the blockchain industry has to be “redecentralised”.

www.anndy.com
j j j